Coffee or Tech? From 中環博客 Central Blogger
Chevalier used to be a tech company in Hong Kong and having acquired Pacific Coffee it seems that its converting to be a coffee business. You'd refer to 中環博客 Central Blogger: Coffee or Tech?
I myself don't like Pacific Coffee because the food and drink quality is not high and I always feel (disclaimer: this is solely because of my personal feeling and it might not be the fact) that their staff would give better service to English speaking customers, whether they are Chinese or non-Chinese.
In fact I could see the risk of the 2 coffee chains in Hong Kong, namely Starbucks and Pacific Coffee. Their coffee are not something new to Hong Kong people. Yes, it could be probable that their coffee would become part of our daily life - but I doubt. So far the colleagues around me, esp. female colleagues, are still not taking the habit of drinking coffee. Maybe it would be something nice-to-have but not mandatory. I used to drink coffee every day and I might get a cup at Starbie but now I turn to the coffee in my pantry. It's merely filter coffee but when compared with a $25+ cup of coffee the quality of my cup definitely exceeded the cost I incur: the labour of taking a cup and pour coffee into it.
Another thing is, if I really want to drink coffee, esp. take-away, I do not need a comfortable place for drinking the coffee. I could just go into McDonald's and grap a cup. It's just less than $10. The quality of Starbie & PC coffee doesn't match with the increment of their monetary value. If I have to sit down and wait for some others, I might pick a Starbie ( I seldom pick a PC unless the location is great because the red deco is making me sick) and stay there, maybe 1/2 hour or 1 hour. If I'd stay there for an hour, that means the cost I 'rent' that sofa for this hour should be equal to the cup of coffee I bought, i.e. $25+. Imagine how much $$ McDonald's or Cafe de Coral could generate from an hour? So it would really hurt if the coffee shops are located in costly office towers.
What I want to demonstrate here is that if drinking coffee could not be established as a habit in the Mainland China, PC's plan would fail there. OK, even the habit has been established, having done some research on the attitude towards drinking coffee of the Mainland people, I guess it might be evolved to a Japan coffee-drinking model. What's that? That is, the Japanese are not very keen on Starbie coffees against their own coffee shops. In fact, if coffee beans are roasted elsewhere the freshness would be discounted. I'm not saying that that many people know how to appreciate coffee. But if the impression that the beans are not fresh and the taste of coffee would be affected, the foreign coffee shops in the Mainland China would suffer. Haven't you seen that many coffee shops in Japan are telling others that they roast their beans on their own?
Also, the service attitude of Chinese waiters & waitresses are not yet satisfactory to give others a comfortable environment, as well as keeping the coffee shop a clean, tidy and comfortable place for enjoying the coffee. They are the important factors of a coffee shop, even more important than the taste of the coffee. If Chevalier couldn't overcome this they could hardly succeed, although I could see that the hygiene of PC coffee has been improved after its acquisition (Disclaimer: my impression only, no scientific evidence).
Good luck to Cheavlier. I guess I have other choices in the stock market.
I myself don't like Pacific Coffee because the food and drink quality is not high and I always feel (disclaimer: this is solely because of my personal feeling and it might not be the fact) that their staff would give better service to English speaking customers, whether they are Chinese or non-Chinese.
In fact I could see the risk of the 2 coffee chains in Hong Kong, namely Starbucks and Pacific Coffee. Their coffee are not something new to Hong Kong people. Yes, it could be probable that their coffee would become part of our daily life - but I doubt. So far the colleagues around me, esp. female colleagues, are still not taking the habit of drinking coffee. Maybe it would be something nice-to-have but not mandatory. I used to drink coffee every day and I might get a cup at Starbie but now I turn to the coffee in my pantry. It's merely filter coffee but when compared with a $25+ cup of coffee the quality of my cup definitely exceeded the cost I incur: the labour of taking a cup and pour coffee into it.
Another thing is, if I really want to drink coffee, esp. take-away, I do not need a comfortable place for drinking the coffee. I could just go into McDonald's and grap a cup. It's just less than $10. The quality of Starbie & PC coffee doesn't match with the increment of their monetary value. If I have to sit down and wait for some others, I might pick a Starbie ( I seldom pick a PC unless the location is great because the red deco is making me sick) and stay there, maybe 1/2 hour or 1 hour. If I'd stay there for an hour, that means the cost I 'rent' that sofa for this hour should be equal to the cup of coffee I bought, i.e. $25+. Imagine how much $$ McDonald's or Cafe de Coral could generate from an hour? So it would really hurt if the coffee shops are located in costly office towers.
What I want to demonstrate here is that if drinking coffee could not be established as a habit in the Mainland China, PC's plan would fail there. OK, even the habit has been established, having done some research on the attitude towards drinking coffee of the Mainland people, I guess it might be evolved to a Japan coffee-drinking model. What's that? That is, the Japanese are not very keen on Starbie coffees against their own coffee shops. In fact, if coffee beans are roasted elsewhere the freshness would be discounted. I'm not saying that that many people know how to appreciate coffee. But if the impression that the beans are not fresh and the taste of coffee would be affected, the foreign coffee shops in the Mainland China would suffer. Haven't you seen that many coffee shops in Japan are telling others that they roast their beans on their own?
Also, the service attitude of Chinese waiters & waitresses are not yet satisfactory to give others a comfortable environment, as well as keeping the coffee shop a clean, tidy and comfortable place for enjoying the coffee. They are the important factors of a coffee shop, even more important than the taste of the coffee. If Chevalier couldn't overcome this they could hardly succeed, although I could see that the hygiene of PC coffee has been improved after its acquisition (Disclaimer: my impression only, no scientific evidence).
Good luck to Cheavlier. I guess I have other choices in the stock market.
posted by legomate at 1:53 pm
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